Trespassers at the Golden Gate
A True Account of Love, Murder, and Madness in Gilded-Age San Francisco
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The sensational, forgotten true story of a woman who murdered her married lover in Gilded Age San Francisco and the trial that epitomized the city's transformation from raucous frontier town into modern metropolis--from the New York Times bestselling author of Empire of Sin
Shortly before dusk on November 3, 1870, just as the ferryboat El Capitan was pulling away from its slip into San Francisco Bay, a woman clad in black emerged from the shadows and strode across the crowded deck. Reaching under her veil, she drew a small pistol and aimed it directly at a well-dressed man sitting quietly with his wife and children. The woman fired a single bullet into his chest. "I did it and I don't deny it," she said when arrested shortly thereafter. "He ruined both myself and my daughter."
Though little remembered today, the trial of Laura D. Fair for the murder of her lover, A. P. Crittenden, made headlines nationwide. As bestselling author Gary Krist reveals, the operatic facts of the case--a woman strung along for years by a two-timing man, killing him in an alleged fit of madness--challenged an American populace still searching for moral consensus after the Civil War. The trial shone an early and uncomfortable spotlight on social issues like the role of women, the sanctity of the family, and the range of acceptable expressions of gender, while jolting the still-adolescent metropolis of 1870s San Francisco, a city eager to shed its rough-and-tumble Gold Rush-era reputation.
Trespassers at the Golden Gate brings readers inside the untamed frontier town, a place where--for a brief period--otherwise marginalized communities found unique opportunities. Readers meet a secretly wealthy Black housekeeper, an enterprising Chinese brothel madam, and a French rabble-rouser who refused to dress in sufficiently "feminine" clothing--as well as familiar figures like Mark Twain and Susan B. Anthony, who become swept up in the drama of the Laura Fair affair.
Krist, who previously brought New Orleans to vivid life in Empire of Sin and Chicago in City of Scoundrels, recounts this astonishing story and its surprisingly modern echoes in a rollicking narrative that probes what it all meant--both for a nation still scarred by war and for a city eager for the world stage.
About this Author
Gary Krist is the author of four previous narrative nonfiction books: The White Cascade, City of Scoundrels, Empire of Sin, and The Mirage Factory. He has also written three novels and two short story collections. A widely published journalist and book reviewer, Krist has been the recipient of the Stephen Crane Award, the Sue Kaufman Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Lowell Thomas gold medal for travel journalism, a fiction fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Public Scholar grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Reviews
"[The book] uses a love triangle gone wrong to tell a wider story about 19th-century San Francisco. . . . Krist has mined a rich vein of material. . . . Trespassers at the Golden Gate also folds in portraits of vibrant and less-famous characters roaming San Francisco during the city's explosive periods of growth, bust and reinvention. . . . Krist helps us understand San Francisco's evolution--a city described by one of its early residents as 'an odd place . . . not created in the ordinary way, but hatched like chickens by artificial heat.'"--Wall Street Journal
"In this masterful work of true crime, Krist wraps a detailed portrait of a booming late nineteenth-century San Francisco around an engrossing account of a scandalous murder. . . . Krist recreates [Laura] Fair's two trials--she was eventually acquitted on grounds of temporary insanity--with meticulous research and a novelist's flair for drama. This top-shelf blend of history and entertainment is as edifying as it is exciting."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A tale of mad love, murder, and the rough-and-tumble mores of early San Francisco . . . [and] a lively, richly detailed social history that ably brings together many narrative strands."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"A scrupulously documented tale of passion, ambition, and social mores set in San Francisco in the early 1870s . . . Krist elucidates a thoroughly engaging slice of history."--Booklist
"An amazingly rich and detailed work of nonfiction of keen interest to anyone interested in the history of the development of San Francisco . . . [Trespassers at the Golden Gate] is much more than a crime story."--Bay City News
"If it were possible to time travel to any American city of the past, my choice would be post-Gold Rush San Francisco. . . . The book is a marvelous tour de force culminating in a trial that riveted the nation and exposed the sexual double standard even in this freewheeling town. The nation hung on every word, and believe me, you will, too."--Liza Mundy, New York Times bestselling author of Code Girls and The Sisterhood
"The story of the murder of a married man in 1800s San Francisco and the debate over the madness of his killer should thrill any true crime reader. In Trespassers at the Golden Gate, Gary Krist accomplishes what good nonfiction does best, offering readers a fusion of murder, intrigue, and solid research that shines a light on the dark corners of society."--Kate Winkler Dawson, author of American Sherlock and The Sinners All Bow
"The Wild West in all its glory: the gold rush, adultery, and, ultimately, murder. Gary Krist draws an indelible portrait of the United States' tumultuous post-Civil War history."--Judith Flanders, author of The Invention of Murder and A Place for Everything
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